“I don’t cook. Unless they sell corn dogs in there, there’s no food here,” I grumbled.
A fiftyish small man with slicked-back black hair and a wide grin of white teeth except for one silver one that flashed cheerfully greeted us. “Luō bīn xiansheng, wõ hěn gaoxìng zàicì jiàn dào nīõ. Nín zuò wõmen de róngxìng yuõ nín de guanglín. Nīõ shentīõ haõo ma?”
The smile disappeared and the brown eyes drooped as he took in our scratches and cuts, and my shirt covered in dried blood. “A, wõ kàn yěxuõ bùshì.”
“He is asking about my well-being. Something that would’ve been nice to hear from the two of you after I faced a god that hates my guts.” Goodfellow answered the man in Chinese. “Zhè shì yīgè feicháng jiannán de yītian, Liú xiansheng. Wõ shì lái yòng le yīduàn shíjian wõ de fángjian, rúguõ zhè shì nīõ méiyõu bùbiàn.”
The owner responded in English for politeness’ sake. “Of course, your room is prepared as always, Mr. Fellows. Come inside. Welcome, welcome.” He led us to the door, through the tiny store and the door at the back. We went down the stairs, passed through a room where knockoff designer bags were being produced among giggling and impossibly fast chatter, to another door, more stairs, and finally a subbasement. He took us to the largest room, which still qualified as small, but with expensive, comfortable furniture, a computer, and a TV squeezed into it. “I will have my great-grandmother bring you food, medicine, hot tea.”
Robin collapsed on the overstuffed couch. “And, Mr. Chen, alcohol, please. A great deal of Baijiu. You know what I like.”
The man bobbed his head. “Of course. Only the best for our friend and benefactor.”
“You’re genuinely going to send your great-grandmother down those stairs? You still don’t trust me with your daughters?” Goodfellow drawled.
“I will help her, and no, Mr. Fellows, I do not trust you with my daughters.” The sad eyes brightened again, the skin wrinkling around them in a laugh. “I also do not trust you with my wife, my grandmother, or my lucky cat that sits in the window to watch for the police.”
The great-grandmother must’ve mainlined ginseng, because she and the owner were back by the time we had all picked out a place to collapse. She looked a hundred and fifty years old, but her feet moved at the speed of light as she balanced a tray on either hand. “I will ring the buzzer if the police come,” Mr. Chen said. “Haters of capitalism that they swear by, tsk, but I fear there is no way out down here.”
“You can say that again.” The puck sighed, referring to our situation rather than a lack of a basement door. “Thank you. You are a true friend.”
Mr. Chen had carried a large box loaded with clothes, bandages, and ointments, as well as a more modern first-aid kit, and balanced on top of all that was a tray with six small ceramic bottles and smaller cups that reminded me of the kind you served sake in, but shaped differently. Goodfellow lifted the tray out and placed it on a low, black lacquered table and started pouring. “That’s a lot of alcohol?” I snorted. “If we had a teddy bear we could have a tea party.”
“They’ll bring more when we finish,” Robin promised. “Here. Try it. It’s honey fragrance. It will help with the pain until more Tylenol takes effect. Oh, and it’s not like sake. You shoot it. No sipping. Treat it as a shot. It enhances the flavor.”
I should’ve known by his offering me the first one. But I was tired, hurting, and if this took the edge off, I’d take that. I tossed it back and promptly choked, positive that kindly Mr. Chen had put diesel fuel in that innocent bottle. My throat was liquid lava and for a moment I thought I saw a tunnel and a bright light. “Honey fragrance?” I coughed several times before gasping. “Then their bees must be flying around sipping paint thinner instead of nectar.”
“But it’s such a small amount.” Robin grinned, pouring one of his own and throwing it down as if it were mother’s milk. “I’ll be sure to tell Chen how disappointed you were. He’s a good host. He’ll hurry with more and stand there until you drink it to make sure all is satisfactory.” He gave up taunting me long enough to point to a small dark alcove in the back of the room. “There’s a shower. It’s not much, but finding underground facilities bearable to use as an emergency bolt-hole isn’t easy. However, I learned a long time ago that it pays to keep them. I’m hoping that in whatever manner Janus senses Vayash, buildings on top of buildings on top of the ground and us beneath it might slow him down.”
“It’s almost night, when he can travel unseen. We will find out then.” Kalakos rummaged for clothing and claimed the shower first.
I didn’t mind. I was more hungry than worried about the blood and dirt. I left the alcohol alone and moved to the trays of food. There was rice, several bowls of different soups, dumplings, a dish of poached vegetables I passed to Nik, a hot pot of steaming beef, and on and on. It was less a dinner for four than a buffet for ten. I grabbed a fork and started loading up a plate. As long as it didn’t look like fried chicken feet, I scooped it up.
“Had your time to think about Grimm?”
“You couldn’t eat your grass clippings and let it go, could you?” I kept eating but with less appetite.
“I can listen and graze both,” Nik said, dry as dust, but serious too. I’d had my time to think and come to terms. And the thinking had been done. The terms, they were harder to swallow than Mr. Chen’s alcohol.
The room was too small for Robin to give us any privacy, making the assumption that he cared about anyone’s privacy. He didn’t. But this time he turned on the TV and kept drinking to give us the illusion of it. That was a first, but we were all having a bitch of a time with relatives these past two days, including one he didn’t want to talk about either. This once he understood and gave us a break.
I took another bite of something spicy and loaded with chicken. After swallowing, I used the fork to push the next bite around the small pot. “Grimm has a damn good shot of taking me out anytime he wants—he could gate circles around me and cut me to pieces, but he needs me to build the new race. The Bae.”
The puck immediately gave up pretending he wasn’t listening. “No. The Bae.”
I frowned. “‘Succubae’ or ‘succubi’ is plural for ‘succubus.’” And they sounded the same whether spelled different or not.
“Yes, that was true until copyright law came into effect and I copyrighted the word and/or syllable ‘bi’ used in any remotely sexual way, which includes a succubus. You may call them ‘Bae.’” Pronounced ‘bay.’”
“You really are a freak, aren’t you?” I considered stabbing him with my fork. It wouldn’t be the first time…or the second. “But whatever, okay. Anything if you’ll go back to watching TV.” I addressed Niko again. “He needs me to build the Bae. And he needs me cooperative.”
Which the Auphe, when they had tried this same plan over a year ago, hadn’t required. They’d had access to Tumulus, a place that would drive me insane in minutes. Frothing at the mouth or catatonic, I didn’t know, but insane enough that they could’ve either used my crazed rage or a catatonic body, posable and reactive as any other male body—but without anyone home in there.
Grimm, an assumed failure, hadn’t been taken to Tumulus. He didn’t know the way. He couldn’t get there. And if he could, he wouldn’t have known its effect on me. He probably didn’t know I’d spent two years there at the mercy of the Auphe while being trained for the big day—gating them back far enough in time to wipe out the human race.